"Missing additional components" to reinstall 10.7.5—Wiping the disk

I’m baaaack. This is so messed up—I’m hoping someone can help me. None of what I wanted to do worked. Here’s what happened.

 It’s a mid 2010 MacBook, currently with the last version of 10.7.5 on it. I’d wiped the disk and couldn’t get boot up because I apparently wiped that emergency boot sector. (The whole history is above—or below.)

FORTUNATELY, I still had a Time Machine backup. I restored that, downloaded (thank you) the disk image of El Capitan (don’t ask me why I chose that one) and WAS ABLE to upgrade its system to El Capitan and it was fine—though all my data was still on it.

Again, the object is to sell this (for not much—I bought a refurbed MacBook Air directly from Apple and would like to put whatever I get from this to that bill). I want to wipe the disk, and put a reasonably current system on  the old MacBook. El Capitan seems okay.

I followed the instructions from here and many places and made a supposedly bootable USB drive. Both Macs see it as such when they are operating normal.

So I went to work and formatted the hard disk again (just a level 1). I’d copied the emergency boot sector of Capitan to the main sector using Disc Utilities, thinking the Mac would boot up from that. I even checked the disk in disk utilities and it said it was fine.

Upon restarting, it never booted. It seemed to be—the progress bar went all the way, but it never finished—I tried it a number of times (like ten!), leaving it on for days. I tried it from that sector, I tried it from the “emergency sector,” I started with Command R and then another couple of times Option, and I never got it to boot from anything, including the USB drive. (Yes, that drive was formatted correctly as per the Apple instructions using Terminal.) 

So my last-ditch thing was to go back to the Time Machine backup. 10.7.5. again, and here I am—just like the Mac was a couple of weeks ago. I have the .dmg for El Capitan, and I went to  install it, and it said it’s installing, but it only takes, like, ten minutes, and I’m still at 10.7.5. I tried that twice. Note that it could never do an internet install because it said it was missing a component. Everything on that computer should be perfectly legal. I’m the registered owner; I have an Apple ID, etc.

1—Any idea why it won’t upgrade now to El Capitan?

2—What would anyone suggest to eventually get the disk clean and upgrade the system. I was thinking maybe I should create another user identity and delete the main one, to get rid of that data. But that still wouldn’t wipe the disk.

HELP, please? Thank you! —Scott

Hi Macjack! Thanks for your quick response!

No, that is the problem, I do not have the discs that originally came with that Macbook.

I was hoping not to have to purchase the system, as, if I even can sell the Macbook, I would not get much for it—it's not in the best shape. (I had checked the link you cite, thanks.)

I have an iMac that I can use to download but I don't see Lion in the app store. Am I missing it? Thank you!!!

Thanks! I'll probably figure out other options rather than spending $20 to basically junk a computer. Maybe I'll just wipe the whole thing and, if I sell it, let a buyer deal with it. Thank you, MacJack!

IGNORE LAST LONG POST. SO SORRY!

Sorry—I don't know how to edit or delete posts or I would have. I did get El Capitan installed so the question really is:

As that Mac seems to have some problem installing from the internet—and it didn't seem to see the USB boot drive—what's the best way to wipe all my data from the hard disk without wiping the system. Is there a way?

THANK YOU AGAIN!

Thanks, Macjack! :( So a new user/buyer would not be able to create a log-in account on the computer and add their Apple ID, if they have one? I created a second administrator account and that did ask to link an Apple ID (which I chose not to).

Thank you again!

Thanks, I agree! I'm still messing with it and have deleted most things in the key chain, etc., and will probably delete my main account. We'll see. It wants to do an update of El Capitan and perhaps that will help. I thank you for your assistance!

Thanks again! I'll try that later tonight or in the morning. BTW, this is what the disk looks like now. BTW, I don't really expect to sell this for much, if at all. I'm going to try to sell it locally, not over eBay or anything like that. It just seems like a shame to throw it or recycle when it works pretty well on a day-to-day basis. Thank you!

Thanks for taking a look at that. I'll let whoever eventually gets it know that the drive has seen better days.

I'm a pretty utilitarian guy—not seduced by the latest versions of things, if something is working fine. That said: the 2017 refurb MacBookAir I just got is a quite a breath of fresh air compared to the 2010 laptop. (My iMac is about five or six years old—that was also an Apple refurb.)

Thanks for all your advice! —Sc